Hi, first of all, I want to express how much I enjoy the game. I bought it after my brother recommended it to me, and I had a blast! I have ~50h playtime, currently level 80. I’m really looking forward to the multiplayer in order to play with my girlfriend! My brother mentioned that feedback was welcome (as the game was still in the works). With that being said, I wanted to offer my fresh outlook on the game. As mentioned in the title, I went for a DoT Lich build.
The Good
- I like the pace of the game (high-damage clearly telegraphed attacks) that reward careful positioning/timing versus a more twitchy gameplay (i.e. PoE), but that might be me getting older.
- The crafting system feels rewarding to use and I was able to reach endgame with what I found.
- The skills and passive skill point forced me to make meaningful decisions, and I still find myself experimenting new ideas.
- The filter system, once you understand it, really allows for anyone to tailor the drop they see, albeit it does take some investment in time
- The level scaling feels a LOT better than other ARPG. Level = damage penetration is a very elegant solution, and I haven’t experienced (yet?) an exponential damage scaling at later level
What could be better
Quality of life
- Filtering could use an “imbrication” systems : I have 20ish affix I’m looking for in my gear for endgame and I want it on very specific base subtype. The only way to select gear subtype is to have only 1 type of item in the base. So I had to create 15 copy of the 20 affixes filter I was looking for, each with a different second condition on the item subtype. I dread the day I’ll decide I want to change one of the affix.
- There should be a filter for a minimum forging potential. Picking up good a good magic crafting base only to realise it has 9 crafting potential isn’t fun.
- Respecing can be a chore, more so since you have to confirm-clic each time. Because you need to meet a minimum # of passive point for later passive, it happened a few time that I had to respec a point, quit the retrainer window, open my passive tree, spend the point, then re-open the retrainer window, … Being able to shift between “respec” and “spend passive” in the retrainer window would be a big QoL.
- Allowing your filter to change the background visual of items in your storage/vendors/inventory would help filter stuff once you pick them up. Ex : I had a green recolor filter on items with +x to skill level to use with runes of shattering, so I know when I pick one from the ground, but I can’t find it easily in my inventory.
DoT build related
- DoT builds could use new suffixes on 2h staff and wands : everything that is available is “on hit”, crit and stun are also hit dependant and if you’re not built for freeze (which the acolyte doesn’t offer a lot of), the freeze rate multiplier is also useless.
- I don’t know why the choice was made to not include “crit damage reduction” and “+ X to all attribute” on staff, while it is on every other 2-hand weapons. These would have been valid options for DoT build.
- New suffixes that increase curse/ailment duration, DoT “tick” frequency, resistance shred on DoT or other effects that trigger on DoT tick would be welcome.
- Both type of catalyst bonus seems wasted on DoT builds. The Lich has 2 passive skills (symbol of decay, wand of the fallen), one of which is even DoT specific, that specify using a wand without a shield (leaving only catalysts). Scrolls/skulls gives crit chance (which is useless for DoT) while the Aegis gives Ward per Second. But choosing ward as the main defense lock you out of using the death seal skill (as it consumes all ward) and ward-generating uniques such as Last step of the living and Exanguinuous really screw reaper form up-time.
- There is a lack of items with +1 to skill compared to other class/builds : Bladed staff gives +1 to melee skill, Dragon staff +1 to elemental skill, but no staff or wand gives a point for necrotic, DoT, curse, poison or spell skills. The Sinathia set gives +2 to curse and +2 to minion but it seems to be targeted at Necromancer since it requires a shield (based on symbol of decay, wand of the fallen in the Lich tree).
- Kill threshold don’t work well with DoT builds. It seems to be a on-hit effect, or if it isn’t, most of the skills with kill threshold are hits. Kill threshold is VERY good agains bosses and anything with high HP, as it can amount to a flat 10% damage increase, but it is weird that I have to start poking the boss when it’s on its last leg to see if it dies after spending most of the fight doing my best to position away from it.
- At least, changing a boss life-bar color when it hits the insta-kill threshold or displaying the % of life remaining would remove the guesswork from this
Progression and endgame
- Gold is weird : I couldn’t get enough of it as I leveled, to respect and buy runes of shattering for fragment, and now I’m sitting at close to half a million and the only “gold sink” is to gamble, which I don’t really enjoy (I’d much rather play). Some rewarding end-game gold sink would be welcome (ex: ability to buy runes/glyph if the rng god don’t smile upon you). Not having a good use for gold also makes echoes gold-reward feels very lackluster, while also being very common.
- Completing quest should give you something else if you already have collected all your idol slots and extra passives. I did every quest along the way, only to realize around the last few acts that I was still set to receive passive. These quest extra could award players with a free attribute point or with a glyph of despair (or other rare item) as an incentive for player to complete them on 2nd+ playthrough.
- Some echo objectives aren’t as enjoyable for me : I’ve had to run around a few minutes trying to catch up to quick patrols
- It is mildly infuriating when you have to kill enemies to reveal the boss, only to find out you went the wrong way and must walk back to the starting point. (Enemies are piñata’s I want to open, tracing back my step due to unknowingly taking a wrong turn feels like a way to stretch time)
- A lot of the maps layout feels like rooms connected by corridors. I don’t remember seeing a lot of open map, which would be a welcome change of pace.
- I beat the boss around level 60. Being forced to do the first timeline twice while over-leveled (meaning slow XP gain) to unlock both timeline didn’t feel rewarding.
Bugs
- DPS tooltip don’t always work : Spirit plague damage do not scale if you pick up “Rotten to the core” and “concentrated rot” but the damage you deal to the dummy do scale. I feel this is important, because as new player try to figure out the game, the tooltip DPS at least gives an idea of which choice is better.
- Using Death Seal don’t empy your ward bar (visual), it stays at the level it was when you activated it.
- I tend to remote play a lot using the steam app (running the game on my gaming PC, playing from my laptop) as it allows me to keep an eye on the kids. Once every fourth time, the game will hung so bad that even the task manager stop responding.
With all of this being said, I want to reiterate that I’m really enjoying the game. Even for a beta, the game is well polished and he gameplay is fun.
